R: At Classical High School I helped do the music for a
production of Arsenic and Old Lace. They said I couldn’t
stay in key very well. I kept talking about the movie with the eye
– Spiral Staircase – I was more into Arsenic than Old
Lace. Then I had to be the runner for that awful Gilbert &
Sullivan’s Mikado. Then there was a third thing. I played
piano for school assembly every week, including a prelude. Mr.
Lindstrom was the music advisor at Suffield Academy. He said, ”keep
only these white notes in,” or some such thing. I think I did a
blues note. Then I had to do the hymns. I was insufferable. I
really hated being there, even though I was indulged. I got a room
for my LP collection. I got a room for my albums. I got to know
Mahalia, Thelonius. The bebop stuff came much later. I loved
Scythian Suite by Prokofiev. Of course, Prelude of the
Afternoon of the Fawn by Debussy. Roy Webb, the guy who did
music for Spiral Staircase, can be hackneyed, but once the
murders started, the last hour of the film, was dramatic and rich.
The theremin was always featured in these scores. And what is it,
the Ondes-Martenot? I much prefer the sound of that. My favorite
film music now is Pierre Jansen. We didn’t have DVDs or VCRs in
Suffield, CT. I longed to go to the Thompsonville Theater. I
remember hitching a ride to see A Streetcar Name Desire in
Springfield. One of my parents’ friends was a no-pain lady, and I
mentioned to my parents I thought she had headaches. My parents
said, “How would you know?” Then I think the cat was out of the
bag. They said, “You’re not going to do this movie business. Why do
you think we moved here?” So I rebelled against my music teacher. I
hated to read music. I did the scales and arpeggios. That was
easier. Her husband was a very kind man. But I knew her first as
Janet Wallace, living on Mulberry Street. Later a man called Lloyd
Stoneman came to our house on Union Street. My parents thought six
dollars an hour was the height of extravagance. Blustering snow or
whatever. And he had to put up with me. I’m tired of people who
don’t do work. You get everything back. He would write reviews once
a month. I would do recitals and the poor man…all young people want
an audience. So, there was a Warren Amerman. He taught music and
his son runs a studio in West Springfield. But finally getting to
Connecticut, I did go to all the churches in town – Polish
Catholic, regular Catholic, Baptist, then a fresh new Episcopal
Church, an Afro American Church. The Polish church had something.
Every once in a while the chords would leave C Major, but it was a
little while before I got the Church of God in Christ, which was on
Russell Street. That was in North Hartford. Now that Church is the
Latter Day Rain. Also in the Wethersfield part of Hartford was Ray
Cassarino, where I really started doing large block chords and
improvisation. Ray did a lot to build up my repertoire for old
standards. And I kept mostly record collecting.

B: Did you specialise in what you were
playing?

R: Well, mostly it was films and doing my own plots. But it was
very rigid back then. It was either Elvis and race music or the
cool cerebral jazz that had been swing. I was a late bloomer to
bebop. Of course you were measured by how well you played bebop.
Now of course it’s still nice to have people study Bud Powell no
matter what. But in those days it was what were you going to be –
an orchestral musician, or chops or what. Cassarino, we worked on
scales, but we went right through repertoire. He gave me a book,
and later I would tell people I was going to burn the fake book.
Even that was tough reading. You could hear some of the
stuff on radio. I started collecting a lot of Ella, Sarah Vaughn,
just loved singers -- Nat King Cole. Of course then I did pretty
well with Charlie Parker and Dizzy, I became a freak for Stan
Kenton and later got to work with Bill Russo. Later I got to where
I could do a lot of what are called standards. Right today, I think
I could play fifty Gershwin songs. That doesn’t mean I’d do them
well, but…that was the music. I joined Eddie White’s rock and roll
band in Windor Locks CT. They liked it rhythmically, but not what
chords I did. At the beginning they didn’t even like me
rhythmically. I couldn’t swing, I couldn’t work with the drummer.
But Windsor Locks…the VFW, there would be different halls. But
maybe the other piano players were too expensive. I think maybe we
played in Hartford once. It was really small town. At first I was
snobbish, then I began to find some of that interesting. We’d do
“Night Train” and this guy would honk that out. He was a tenor
saxophone player. Now it sounds good, but Ray Charles came a little
later. I also began going to Jinxey’s in Springfield on Hancock
Street. It would be interesting to know if that place is still
there and if Frankie Jonas still runs it. Then there was the Elks
Club in North Hartford. I had my first rum & coke there.
Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday night a quartet played there and a guy
would sit in on bass called Mo Cloud, who was married to Sadie.
Ernie Wilson who was the regular bass player is now in Miami, doing
research. There was a bass player called Norman, Bunny was the
drummer.

R: No. This and Jinxey’s did standards including an Errol Garner
piece called “Trio.” I would hear sort of be-bop. We’re now sort of
‘54-‘55-‘56. I’m one of the few blue eyed guys there. It was so
close to the church, I was afraid I’d see – I called her my step
mother Carter – she was a wonderful proud Pentacostal woman and I
was so afraid I’d be found out going to that bar. And I could never
join the church because I wouldn’t give up movies. I never gambled,
and I could have given up a glass of wine back then, but…for music,
I guess I would have been more open to what was then emerging as
rock.

R: Yeah, I did, And Jim Case was the president.

B: Did you go there with the idea of studying jazz
composition?
[page break]
R: Well, there was no such thing and I made a petition – could I be
a jazz major? The following summer I was at Lennox School of Jazz.
I had Oscar Peterson. I guess I got the okay, but there was nobody
there. I started putting on the Bard Jazz Festivals. And I just
read in the NY Times this morning about Jimmy Priest who was Marian
Anderson’s nephew, who was a drummer who got polio. He’s now
conductor who’s doing conducting at Julliard Stockholm. I tried to
get a group down from Albany with Hod O’Brien. But I would be on
campus from Monday night to Thursday. But I remember there was
Buddy Tate in New York, and going to the Apollo Theater and Max
Harrison from a London magazine would come in.

B: While you were enjoying these noir films, did you
read any of the source material?

R: I had every book I could get at the Paris Airport of James
Hadley Chase. Dashiell Hammett…I think the women scared me more.
The Postman Rings Twice by James Cain. There may have been
a year ‘54-‘55 that was noir. Then Vertigo came out.
According to my father I had another relapse. But I felt jazz is
what I am. People would say there was too much Ives. And I don’t
think I did swing. So I think very consciously I though, I’m going
to get Bud. Monk was no problem, I could eat him up. Then Charlie
Parker, but why was Ray Charles easier?

R: Well, "Unanswered Questions", The Second Movement of the
Fourth Symphony, "Central Park", "Housatanock"…but a lot of it was
very discernable from hymnals. But I craved…Kenton really filled
the bill for a while, but after ‘55 he never did, except his theme
song got better with Peter on drums. But I guess I wanted a wild
R&B pre-Aretha with wild strange chords. That was a hard
product to get. At Bard College we had a professor, Leonard
Catewell from the Berlin Philharmonic, more of a snobbish guy, Paul
Nortoff. I was such a slow pokey composer. I really did not notate.
And people today seem to think my piano things are pretty arranged.
I think there are themes that l keep coming back and forth, but
there was always that moment – who might be behind the curtain.
What’s going to happen. Daydreaming about the past and films. Then
going to Birdland. I got to study well a little later. Then I had a
six week field period at Atlantic.

B: What was the incident you describe recreating from
Key Largo ?

R: Well, I don’t think that’s so great a movie. But maybe it’s
the storm brewing. I wouldn’t say it’s one of the thirty important
films.

R: Yeah. She came in and said, “You remind me of Art Tatum.”

R: I believe she came in the same year, but I may have been a
year or two older because I did one extra year at Suffield Academy.
Then hung around the house and had some odd jobs. I know I was a
year or two older, but I believe I was in the same class as Jeanne.
We met at Bard Hall. The first piece we did was “Jeepers Creepers.”
We went to a recording studio in Springfield. I don’t know what
happened to this homemade LP. I loved her parents – Madeline – who
has such a long life. I thought Jeanne and I would grow old
together. Madeline was quite a dancer and she appeared in a group
called Over 70. Jeanne’s father, Alonzo, was the postman. A very
dignified guy. A great friend of Brock Peters, who was in The
Pawnbroker and To Kill a Mockingbird. They lived on
Freeman and Prospect Avenue in the Bronx and I would go there for
weekends. Right behind the house was Skippy, the sister of Nellie
Monk.

B: You recorded while you were still at Bard?
[page break]
R: Privately, yeah. We paid $100. Then I remember Jeanne played a
lot with a Broadway pianist, Jonathon Tunic. And we didn’t really
connect much the sophomore and junior years. Then we did a little
but more our senior year. Then I moved to a boarding house in NY
City.

B: How did the Atlantic Records thing
happen?

R: I became Tom Dowd’s assistant. And met Jerry Wexler, who
would later bring in Aretha. She really broke right when I got back
from Greece. I remember going to see her at the Village Vanguard
and there were 8 or 9 free tables. Then all of a sudden in ’68 she
really hit big with “I Never Loved a Man.” At Bard College I had
about 12 advisors who had to read essays. There was a field period
where I worked in a little record shop in West Hartford and got a
little salary of $20 a week and 10 albums. So I began absolutely
collecting stuff. At Atlantic, just to be able to meet Laverne
Baker. I said, “Would you like water.” She said, “Buster when I
want a drink, you better know what I mean.” Ruth Brown would drop
by. Ahmet Ertugun would want coffee one way, Jerry Wexler another.
Herb Abramson another. I arrived there one Monday in January and
nobody knew who the hell I was. Neshui had hired me and he was away
on a trip. I arrived and said, “Oh, Mr. Ertugan, I’m so happy to be
here.” He said, “Who the hell are you?” Then later he said, “You
call this coffee?” It was at 157 West 57th and the other studio was
246 West 56th. Then of course they moved up to 63 Broadway and
Warner Brothers ate them up. Neshui arrived that afternoon, “Ah
yeah, Ran Blake. You were going to work here a few days.” I said,
“Six weeks, Mr. Ertugan.” He said, “I’ll send you over to Tom.” I
guess Gunther remembers me sweeping floors. I can remember his at
10th and Lennox. To absolutely have people reinforcing me about how
great Ray Charles’s “Green Dollar Bill” was. Maybe some people
said, “Oh, listen to this.” Lee Konitz is a monster and Tristano,
but I immediately…I had always loved Mahalia. Maybe somebody said,
“Ran, why did you play with Eddie White?” Or maybe I didn’t like
rock then, but just to hear the rhythm and blues and to see these
people walk in, it was absolutely incredible.

B: Yeah, Tristano was an Atlantic artist
then.

R: Right. I went out to Long Island and had a lesson. George
Russell came and I had met him at Lennox. And what a great cook he
was. Bill Russo came and Oscar Peterson even came down and gave me
two lessons. It took me ten years to pay for one. I really was not
a very good filer, but to absolutely see people I’d heard about,
and to have my ears extended – to the Platters. Chris Connor was
away that period, but I believe that was really the only non-black
singer I appreciated. Tommy Talbert, but I liked all the Atlantic
stars – MJQ, John Lewis, Percy Heath, Connie Kay, Milt Jackson…they
would be dropping by and sometime some of them would say, “Ran, do
you want to join us for coffee?” But I knew that I was just there.
I began to feel worse and worse about my playing, because I really
didn’t fit in with Clyde McPhatter, or the Tristano’s for speed.
Laverne Baker was doing a Bessie Smith record and just to be at one
of the great studios, was…It really was classic and it became very
important. That was a big element in my life. There are so many
people who play R&B better than I do. Maybe part of that
doesn’t come out. But I keep coming back to Al Green and Ray
Charles. But Tom had these great machines. The Ertugans were
dapper. Naturally I had a little more in common with Neshui. So
that was six weeks. And I would go back and forth. Bard was a
wonderful school. I got to know the community. I had a newspaper
route. We put on three to four festivals. A dog joined our combo,
who could hit the bass drum.

B: You were still doing combos at that
point?

R: Through Jinxey’s I had a rhythm section. We played at Vassar
a couple of times.

R: No, I would get a horn player. And one of them is eight times
the star I am – Houston Person. He joins me later on Suffield
Gothic. I’ve never done an album for Springfield. I guess I
should. But Houston used to play. My second year at the Elk Club he
became my horn player. He had relocated to Hartford from Carolina.
He had that rich Texas sound. Well the photographer who owned the
Coolidge Corner Theater is Joe Hardman, the black gentleman on the
cover had played and sung with Ellington maybe two weeks of his
life. All the other people there was a lady with white hair who was
a neighbor who used to be the witch on Halloween. I’ve chosen my
covers with care. Sometimes I don’t, like the black bag, and Jeanne
Lee’s shawl.

B: Where did the valise come as a symbol?
[page break]
R: Well I studied with Bill Russo at Riverdale and I kept dropping
things. I had a Kenton question, then a Charlie Parker question. I
wanted to know why he and Chris didn’t make a record. Then I would
read these mystery books by James Hadley Chase and Patricia
Highsmith. I remember the IRT conductor, way back in 1960, in the
middle of the day taking that Broadway line. I think I got to know
some people. I remember tumbling out on Broadway at 236th street.
There was a tailor there and he said to make a suitcase would cost
$35. My aunt in Northampton sent me a $15 check. And you could get
these black bags for a dime a dozen. I used to call the black bag
Thelonius. And except for the Paul Bley Breakthru, I think
it’s on every disc. Blake’s bag,, I don’t know. You asked about
George Avakian, I don’t know how we got on, because compared to
Ornette, we were not avant garde. I think George is better known
for that. Avakian did so much. He was so open to Gunther. I’ve been
with Gunther 35 years, but lessons could be as infrequent as three
times a year. That was a great profound thing. How Jeanne and I got
on Victor…I know he was doing album with Sonny Rollins, The
Bridge. I had a wonderful manager, Guy Freedman, he couldn’t
get us a gig at a local place, then suddenly got us on Victor. My
parents couldn’t believe it. We had two successful tours of Europe,
and we appeared in New York during the first album a couple of
times at the place Lee Morgan was shot.

R: Yeah. We did Sundays noon or something. We did the Apollo,
won first award, but never were able to do it four weeks in a row,
so we never got booked.

B: You played the Monterey Jazz Festival in
62.

R: Yeah. And I remember Yola Brubeck on the plane. It was my
first airplane flight.

R: We might have gone to San Francisco also, but we didn’t get
too much audience support at Monterey. We did Golden Circle in
Sweden, Bergen, Antibes… A whole European tour and nothing would
happen in America. Bill Smith, a friend of Brubeck’s in Rome helped
out in Rome and Palermo. We got some nice audience reaction. I know
Max Gordon said we weren’t ready for the Vanguard, that I wasn’t
very relaxed. And I probably was awkward as hell at the audition. I
really was not a swinger. There really was not the beat. And I
guess we loved more ballads, so that can be a little hard going. I
know at Copenhagen, at the Montmarte, they didn’t want us. We would
look back and ask, “Why did we do well at Golden Circle?” I never
really made it much as a solo either. My only success was at the
Whiskey Jazz Club in Madrid. Where I would be asked to go back. You
know how much I admire Chris Connor and I’m not sure personal
appearances were her most relaxing experience. The second trip with
Jeanne Lee we spent some time in Belgium. There’s a photograph of a
wonderful patron of the arts who also owned the nightclub. Jeanne
and I would appear at the house and we would do soirees. Through
this, I think, we met Ilyas Kistelink. There are some wonderful
recordings in the Belgian television archives. I remember playing
in Stuttgart opposite Cecil Taylor, Jeanne and I. Jeanne says
you’re making a mistake going to Greece, remember that. You have
300-400 extra dollars. We finally got paid. I was a year or two
older, but she had a wonderful grip on reality. I went and of
course the junta took place. Nightmares. People invited back to
Greece.

R: Well, she was over there a lot. I think there were Paris
concerts, but we never toured again. She appeared at Jordan
Hall…but there were not many concerts. I remember missing Paris so
much. I’ve made 35 or 40 trips and I think I’ve had to pay for one
in my life. It’s mostly been France. It’s so interesting because
you can bomb in Paris, but people with a little power, if they like
someone they can somehow get the money and bring you over.
[page break]
B: The record won an award also.

R: The Billie Holiday award. A lot of that was for Jeanne Lee’s
interpretations. I know she was called the heir of Billie Holiday
in Palermo. We got a lot of great press in Stockholm. We stayed for
a month at the Hotel Neptune in Bergen. Through friends of friends.
We played Kenny Clarke’s at St Germain du Pres. We did an evening
in Paris and it was a little controversial. Nothing like
Stravinsky, but some people said, “Where did the jazz go?” I know
Trude Heller on Sixth Ave in NYC once suggested to Jeanne Lee that
she drop me. Jeanne of course appeared with so many musicians, but
at that time she said, “I won’t drop Ran.” I think it just had to
do with the music. My piano playing didn’t have quite the bristle
of Cecil. I loved Jeanne lee and Archie Shepp’s version of “Lover
Man” and also “Blasé.”

B: Did you actually petition for the Mingus Tijuana
Moods LP to be released?

R: Not really. The person who really knows the story on that's
Bill Dixon, who was working at the United Nations at that time. We
have files here of all the names of the people who signed the
petition.

R: Martin Williams did not like a lot of my music. But he said,
“Why don’t you consider calling Bernard Stollman and doing an album
for him?” So I did. Bernard said he’d have me for another album. I
should have called him but I never did. Although I had the best
oatmeal cookies ever from his mom. Their place was up on Riverside
Drive and there was a little dog, Pico, and Donald and Albert Ayler
would be sitting there. I guess we had a few glasses of water. So I
would wake up at the Stollman’s place on Riverside Drive. That was
around the end of my New York period. I must have crashed there,
and remained friends. They would give me free albums. I met him by
calling up his law office. He said, “Sure, drop by.”

B: You record a lot of covers on that record, although
he calls them originals on the first press.

R: Well, I think most people did almost all originals until
later. I think it had “Vanguard” on it. I was working with an avant
garde composer at the time, Charles Wouronen.

B: Bernard once assured me that you bought back the
master tapes for that ESP album.

R: Maybe he doesn’t have the reels.

B: It was the first ESP LP that went out of
catalogue.

R: Maybe it was a poor seller.

B: No way. He kept Ni Kantu En Esperanto in
print for years!

R: His parents loved that record. Were Burton Greene’s albums in
print for a while?

B: Oh yeah. A friend of mine did a concert with Burton
and he got busted for pissing on the streets of Amherst,
Massachusetts.

R: Well the food and drinks they served me were not macrobiotic.
But those were the parents. Bernard treated me well. There was one
club I remember I didn’t get paid. It was only 80 or 90 dollars and
I remember Bernard handing me that money, which he probably could
have used.
[page break]
B: The ESP album had a poem by Bob Marius, who is
he?

R: He has now got another name and he has come to a lot of my
recent concerts. He was on Riker’s Island, in jail for choosing not
to serve in Vietnam. He and I hung out together. I used to work as
a switchboard operator at a hotel on West 58th Street. It was two
blocks from Atlantic Records. I was told I could never sleep on the
job, or leave the premises. But I was allowed a bottle of wine a
night and all the friends who could fit in the room. But I mustn’t
sleep. All these things were going on, like a massage parlor. And
all these things were happening, but I was just back with the
Spiral Staircase family. Finding out who the killers were. There
was also a stint at the Columbia University Hotel. But Bob Marius
was a wonderful poet. He wrote that poem – Middle Class
Ebony. Bernard wants me to do new liner notes. I don’t know
why.

R: We went mostly upstate New York. It was Patty Waters,
Giuseppi Logan, Burton Greene and the whole Sun Ra Arkestra.

R: I happened to play with Patty once. I basically played solo
piano. Sun Ra never asked me. And he and Burton were on not on
speaking Terms. Logan had his quartet. We just sat on the bus.
Burton usually liked to sit up in front. And I think there were
four cities – Syracuse, Buffalo…There were four stops. I don’t
think we were promised much bread, but it was very nice. To really
get to know Pat Patrick was great. It was great being with Sun Ra
on the road [...]

R: Stollman is fascinating. And those oatmeal cookies he served
up in the morning. To wake up and there was Albert Ayler, and their
little dog Pico would jump up. And you never knew what people would
be there. You think Bernard was serving breakfast? It was the
mother and the father. He’s in another room somewhere. You’d never
know who would be there. I act as though I was there many times,
but I think it was maybe three times.

B: Did you ever have any associations with Lowell
Davidson?

R: No, I met him at a church his father had on Columbus Avenue.
He was at Harvard. I met him all of two times. I knew him mostly
because Bernard would put ESP albums inside my black case. We ran
into each other once or twice in Boston, but he has a wonderful
mystique and reputation here, with all the people who played with
him. And Giuseppi Logan I never saw again. Burton Greene never came
into my life again until he played locally with George and Ed
Schuller. And they were not allowed much solo space.

B: There were not very many solo piano records being cut
in those days. People were into trios.

R: I did not get along with bass players. Drummers, I did. In
fact John Hazilla and I are doing a drum/piano duet. But apart from
Eddie Light, and the gospel church…I knew the standards and stuff,
but I dunno. I guess with all the films in my head and running to
theaters, I just ended up playing alone.

B: Were you playing live at all during that
period?

R; Very rarely. Paul Bley got me a gig in New York at the Front
Page. Then he and Steve stopped their tour. I did play in Madrid. I
drove most of the customers away, and then artists and painters
came to hear me. So I became…to get 30 people in a 40 seat bar in
Madrid was very good. They paid my hotel and I could get some
paealla sometime and gazpacho. But years went by and I didn’t play.
I guess I had more freedom playing alone. That was 67, then the
Conservatory became my whole life.

R: And Sun Ra once warned me – watch out for Burton
Greene. I once ran into Sun Ra years later in Athens. This was
1977. Someone asked would I come down to the lobby, there was a
person there who says he’s misplaced his passport and he’s from
Saturn. I came down and I said, “Ah, Mr. Ra.” And a whole lot of
people were there – Byron Allen and a whole lot of people. Anyway,
the next morning Mr. Ra did come to the table and said something.
He was quite a gentleman with that little hat. But that was the
60s. There was Prestige, Blue Note, Atlantic, Riverside…Battle
Records. CL Franklin made four records there long before Columbia,
It was a subsidiary of Riverside. But there were not many
labels.

B: Well, when European labels began to proliferate, that
seems to have changed your focus to there.

R: The Bonnoginni family is absolutely great in Milano, and I
love Jean Jacques of Owl. He really did some wonderful recordings.
He wanted to make The Death of Edith Piaf the title and
cover of the album. France…when they don’t like you they let you
know, but it’s quite a wonderful country.
[page break]
B: There were five LPs worth of material recorded that
month.

R: How did I get away with that?

B: Well, it’s funny. You had recorded very sporadically
before that.

R: Well, except for Bernard, and maybe Soul Note, I never
approached anybody to record. People would usually invite me.

B: Were Crystal Trip and Open City
recorded as separate sessions?

R: Michael Smith, who was living in the south of Sweden, knew
Aldo Sinesio. I remember they met me at the airport and got me so
drunk I was sick for three days. I don’t remember if I ever got
paid for the double album. He was a like an Italian Bernard
Stollman, but the wine was better.

R: No, but he was a great friend of Rossolini.

B: How did you come to record with Paul Bley’s
label?

R: Well, I’d known Paul. I was a big fan of his and had him come
and play at Bard College. I knew Paul and Carla. And he’s still
with the wonderful Carol, who did all the covers for those records.
They asked if I would come and do one. They said they’d pay all the
studio costs. I think I had to fly from Brussels to Oslo. It’s odd,
that was recorded in Oslo and my first French record,
Wende was recorded in Jamaica Plain. But Paul said I had
to record in Oslo. I remember overstaying at a house in Brussels,
because if I had played on Sunday the engineer would have to get
time and a half.

B: None of the material on Horo has been
reissued on CD.

R: Well, why is that? Aldo had a wonderful assistant. A
Brazilian guy that has a new name. He’s the one who engineered
those. Then Jeanne and I did an album that was released, from a
party in Stockholm. We did Beatles and Duke Ellington.

B: How often were you getting over to Europe to
play?

R: I kept track of every trip until seven or eight years ago,
and I think there were 35 or 40 trips. Maybe I’m exaggerating.

R: Well, last time it was The Strasburg Festival. I was teaching
for a week at Paris Conservatory. Then going to go see the setting
for Claude Chabrol’s Boucher, I always wanted to stay 3 or
4 days, just using up some of the money going to Pere Lachaise to
see Edith Piaf’s grave or trying to get an appointment with
Stephane Aludran. Or Claude Chabrol. Never succeeding. Remembering
trying to ask somebody for a date, only to find out she wasn’t
Truffaut’s niece. Michael Smith, the pianist, brought me to play in
a little Swiss package tour about 20 years ago. Touring little bits
of Sweden. But I think France has been generous, especially the
west coast. And I’ve been 4 or 5 times to the Bordeaux region.
Never really making a particular hit, but somebody in a book store
liked it.

R: Franz Koglmann and his wonderful wife, Ingrid Karl, who has a
museum. They heard about me through Bob Alt from the Vienna scene.
They invited me. They’ve had me over about three times, and I did
do Meet Me in Vienna for Art Lange, with Braxton. That was
done around there. There’s that Koglmann CD where I’m the side
person. And there’s one wonderful piece by the North Carolina
composer Claire Ritter. It’s a little gem from that record. I love
repertoire by the way. On Indian Summer, the album I did
with Knife. I do track two from Michael Jackson’s
Thriller. One time, when moving to this basement hovel, I
lived in another basement. And all my records were packed up except
Thriller and three other ones.

B: So you were trying to decode the biggest selling
record of all time?

R: I didn’t know the word decode then, but probably I was. There
were warning signs that I should try to make my music a little bit
more acceptable. But my main man is Al Green and I love “Judy” from
Lets Stay Together. And “Mimi” from the white album. If I
had to drop things, I’m so glad that my name is mentioned in small
print on an Al Green box set. I show that to everybody.

B: You did another European tour with Jeanne in 67. And
after that’s when you went to Greece?

R: Yeah, I remember meeting Valdivalisa on the plaza. And my
friend Yanni, they scaled his lips. I really got very shaken up.
There were no buses, no telephones, and I was inn an area where
there was no English spoken. Someone I got to Rome and I remember
two Italian teenagers almost adopting me one night. I guess I must
have been very incoherent. Somebody arranged for me to stay with a
Floriano Hepner, whose former girlfriend was Linda Darnell, the
film noir actress. Then I remember doing a protest concert, and
going to Oslo, and coming back to America on July 4th. Trying to
meet Theodorakis, whose music was forbidden. I arrived back in NY
with no money. My father gave me an ultimatum and Gunther offered
me a job at the Conservatory. And that’s how I came back to
Massachusetts. I’d been left an apartment in New York, but I
started right at the bottom of the ladder at NEC. I was dusting and
helping move pianos and running the postal service. When the mail
came, I had to get it into all the various offices. I was allowed
to talk 5 minutes to the secretary in one office. But I really got
to know the flow of the Conservatory. We started a jazz department
a year later. The anniversary will be celebrated next October.
[page break]
B: Did you start teaching as soon as the Jazz Dept. was
formed?

R: Yes. I started with Extension of Vision. I was on
the faculty around 68, 69. My main thing was running a community
service program, with various bosses over me. I was responsible
from bringing music into Waltham Penitentiary, the Woman’s Prison
in Framingham and Walpole. And I was doing rehabilitation in other
outlets, trying to give students a chance to perform, trying to get
the Italian, Spanish and particularly the black community into the
Conservatory. And finding Brother Alphonso, the stride pianist with
shrieking gospel voice, the Crayton family, the Wallace singers and
Mae Arnett, who became the star of our Billie Holiday Story. She
knew the whole old Harlem and had grown up there. Later I got
criticized for bringing in too much of the community, only because
I was ignoring our own student body. People were very open. We were
the first conservatory to have jazz and the first to have a
community outreach program. To prisons and to old person’s homes.
And I would go to pool halls and recruit people. It was $25 a
semester to became a student at the conservatory.

R: Yes. And then Jaki Byard heard him and he got him into the
jazz program, which was certainly more than $25 a semester. The
Third Stream Department started in 72. I widened the definition,
because in the first year we had a student from Ethiopia – why not
my country? I became very interested in retention – how one retains
music. And that’s what my book is about. Guess I’m really want to
find some disciples who will do a 4 or 5 year study on how people
find thing in subliminal hearing and all that. I do want to say
there’s a very wonderful guy running the department now – Hankus
Metsky. He’s done a lot of work in Klezmer and it’s really a
wonderful program. Gunther is so important in my life. And also a
lady called Dorothy Wallace. And in the last 15 years, the Knife.
For me it’s very important for me to hang with people I play with.
Braxton and I didn’t rehearse, but we would certainly go through
these delightful bottles of Northern Italian wine. He can be very
delightful. We ended up in Rome with John Hazille, Chris Brooks,
Hankus Kitsky. We knew each other years before we played, but we
certainly weren’t close friends. I loved his wife, Nicole. That’s
quite a delightful piece on Arista – Nicole – there aren’t any
mathematical symbols for it. I only met them at Arista Records.
They used to hang out with Steve Backer a lot. Did you know Michael
Cuscuna?

R: He got me to play a solo set at his high school dance, then
there was also the Kenny Dorham Quartet. I remember Kenny and I
talking a train to Greenwich, Connecticut or wherever it was.

R: Yeah, and he got Chris Connor to sing, and Ricky Ford, Jerome
Harris, and this wonderful singer, Eleni Odoni. One of my favorite
people to play with is Christine Correa, from Mombai.

B: You really like working with female
vocalists.

R: Yeah, but I’d really like to work with Al Green, too. If you
could arrange it. I love the timbre of the voice, and singers don’t
have to worry as much about keys and all that. The vice and the
orchestra are my two favorite instruments.

B: In listening to your collaborations, I sometimes
wonder if you’re not being too deferential to your collaborators.
Like, on the session with Lacy, you seem to almost take a step back
when he starts to play.
[page break]
R: Well, a lot of people don’t believe in rehearsals. He’s a horn
player and he was busy and a genius. Maybe I was a bit in awe of
him, but I always use space in my solo work. But I’m never quite
sure. I like to sit and drink with a person and think of a
scenario. He was rushed in and out of there by Werner Oov. He hated
the way I pronounced it. And he thinks the greatest group I ever
played with was Ginger Buttkiss. He was gonna try to get Knife, but
he broke up the group. I guess I can be a little sparse at times.
I’ never sure what the next person’s going to do.

B: That might be a function of having played solo so
much.

R: Maybe it is. And even though I have a wide number of
contacts, I’m really very solitary. In Suffield I had the record
room where I could stay and sleep. There would be babysitters for
my sister who'd fade in and out of life. I would just replay dark
films in my imagination and even though I have web pages and all
that, I’m really a recluse. I’m quite a loner after 10:00 at
night.

B: The Blue Potato. Recorded in April 69, the
title is a joke about Irish cops?

R: Well, I was in Roxbury the night Martin Luther King got
assassinated. And I remember seeing two black men beaten by two
white cops after they said something, perhaps about Blue Power. But
that’s what Blue Potato refers to. I now use it to teach
people descending major sixes. But I think everything on the album,
apart from “Stars Fell On Alabama” is about that. But “Bella Caio”
is about abusing women, there’s an anti-Mussolini piece, “God Save
The Child”…I remember on the liner notes I thank Mr. Di Giorgio. He
and his wife taught me everything I know about the folk music of
Italy and its use as a protest.

B: That was the first album you recorded after you
started teaching.

R: Yeah, and I think it got reviewed in Downbeat along
with Charlie Haden’s Liberation Orchestra.

R: Well, some, but I was doing an awful lot of recruiting then,
too. I went to all but two states of this country, and I wasn’t
really doing all that much teaching my first four or five years.
And if I was away for more than a week I had to pay for an
assistant. So again, apart from recruiting, I don’t think I have
left the conservatory, except once for a private tour of the United
States, that was primarily on the continent. But, primarily I was
teaching and going to films. The Orson Welles Theater had opened.
Suddenly, Vertigo, Psycho, A Touch of
Evil – Orson Welles’ real masterpiece with that incredible
opening scene.

B: You don’t use any Mancini in your music about that
film.

R: Well if you heard my version now I would. But Film
Noir was a fun album to do. That was recorded near a Chinese
restaurant on Chestnut Hill.

B: How did that Take One Take Two sequence
happen?

R: That was for Clark Gayle out on Long Island. He had me do two
takes of everything. He had been recording a lot of conservatory
concerts. I figured that every year we’d be brings out an album
like Third Stream Today. Today, Clark paid for my hotel
and expenses, He decided to bring two albums out with the same
order and everything. That was his idea, he said each take was
different.

B: Maybe you could do an album that was just many
versions of one tune.

R: I love “Gloomy Sunday.” There are many great versions of
that.

B: Was the Brattle concert done just as music, or was
there film shown?

R: That was just music, although I have worked with film a
couple of times in Europe. Once at a Steve Lacy concert in Italy. I
usually have so many movies going in my mind that I don’t actually
need to watch a film. Especially if I’m playing solo, I don’t need
them. But that was the Vertigo album, and I remember Bob
Blumenthal panned the show. And then I did Portrait of Doktor
Mabuse with an orchestra. It has that Prada Yasi tune that’s
appeared on about seven of my records – “You Stepped Out of a
Dream.” That was a transcription of the solo I recorded for Paul
Bley’s label, which had been inspired by the Chris Connors version.
Which is so slow. Of course originally I heard it as an up-tempo
piece with Nat King Cole. About 30 or 40 people came to that show.
It was very nice to play at a movie theater. And I did a couple of
concerts at the Coolidge Corner as well.

B: How many times do you need to see the film to feel
you know it?
[page break]
R: Eight or nine times. And I’m still getting different subtexts
from Spiral Staircase. And Vertigo now I see the
light dim at the Argosy Bookstore and you get to see the lightning
on Kim Novak on the one edition. But I really think it’s Chabrol. A
lot of awful things happen to people in his films.

R: No. I write poorly.

B: I have friends who have sidelines improvising to
silent films.

R: I do that with the sound off to Spiral, but it puts
me in a weird spot. What would I do when Charlie Chaplin slips on a
banana? I would like to do it to a dark haunted Edgar Allen Poe
story. But there are so many things I would not be able to fit in
with. I mean, I could get away with it, but…usually the pianos are
pretty crummy too.

B: Some of your film work seems to be as much about
memory as film itself.

R: And that’s the biggest facet of my teaching, too. Flashbacks.
My memory is more about special events than anything linear in the
plot. That’s why I would feel hampered a bit. It would be like
playing with a rhythm section, but at least I would know what the
film was doing. It might be nice to try it some time, but I have so
much of my own memories constantly with me. Not just movies, but
Mary Lou Williams and a three hour lesson where we would do
Catholicism. We would do the rosary beads, then she would slap my
left hand if I dropped a beat. Then back to the rosary beads, then
suddenly she brought out the most delicious fried chicken and a
glass of scotch. Then we go back to rosaries, then back to the
piano. Then she did one of my pieces – “Vanguard” or something –
where she trued to make me feel good. Now I’m still her priest. But
there are so many flashbacks. That’s why I infuriate people who
want references. Up until about five years ago I went to about five
concerts a week. Now I have a hard time putting new stuff into my
memory. Young people process new information so quickly. I admire
that. I’m slower. Those are my favorite 30 movies up on those
shelves. To really know Chris Connor’s Blue album, to
wonder why Judy was put on Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together
on side two. Stevie Wonder’s Innnervisions. There are so
many delights, who has time for new music new experiences? There
are so many memories. I had probably only five or six lessons with
Mary Lou. [...] My teaching is most of my life. And if I say,
“Let’s get to the subliminal,” that's because mostly that’s what
I’m referencing. I don’t think I’m an intellectual musician. Things
burst forth from my dreams and I’m maybe trying to suggest that
people check out Big Mama Thornton and Johann Brahms and Odetta and
Miriam Makeba. There are so many. I think a writer can keep us on
our toes sometimes. It’s really hard as an educator. I guess I
really want people to have history, but it takes time.

B: With Painted Rhythms in 85, you start to
play with some Sephardic themes, as you had with Greek themes in
the ‘60s.

R: I love Sephardic music. I get tired of repeating myself. And
a guy who studied with me, Hankus Kinsky, he’s running the
department now. I took two courses with him and I can’t sometimes
keep the noir out, but I love the whole Spanish Jewish Arabic
tradition, and the music from that area of Seville and all of that.
I loved that area of Spain. And it really brought me back to Greek
music, like Rembetika. Because I think I had only explored Greek
music more politically.

B: How did the Clifford Jordan thing
happen?

R: I remember being with him. There’s a very courtly French man
living in upper Maryland. He was a great friend with Shirley Horn.
One could never be alone in his beautiful house. He would always
have it full of wonderful people. He must have sent for me. Dave
Sebinksy came down. I must have been touring for the conservatory.
I just walked into a house, met somebody named Cleopatra. There was
also a second album that never got released. I don’t think we were
very good.

B: What happened to the idea of your Great Composers
series, with Mingus being in there?

R: I’d like to do Mingus. Ernie Santuoso – he was a sports
writer for the Globe – couldn’t stand my playing but
became my fan at a Kenton concert. He begged me once to do Bud
Powell. I said, “Look, I don’t have Bud’s speed.” I would love to
do Mingus. I did Gershwin, I did Ellington. I’d love to do Stevie
Wonder. There are so many people I’d love to do, but I don’t want
to flood the market.

B: How did you get together with Josh
Rosenthal?

R: He came and saw me at Koby’s and said he was going to bring
out a three CD retrospective set, getting together with all the
labels, and putting it together in a facsimile of the black bag I
carry. Josh didn’t have the money.

B: He told me he had wanted to reissue the Horo records, but he
couldn’t get in touch with Sinesio.
[page break]
R: Well, what could he do now. One of them I know I wasn’t paid
for. I’ve always thought I’d love to do a record called All
About Chris, where we’d go into the vaults and get some those
things from Atlantic, and put some samples of the original material
inside the songs. I feel like one reason I’m getting a little
attention now is the fact that I don’t do a new record every month.
I really would love to do Mingus, though.

R: Very much. Not every bit, but he and Sun Ra --- the solo
album he did for Paul Bley. I don’t think he went far enough. It’s
not as great as it could have been. But then I don’t think he gets
enough credit as a bass player either. His solo on Frenzy
on Atlantic – what a giant. All Gunther’s work on bringing Epitaph
alive. All his rich harmonic. He was very supportive of me, but
that’s because I think I stayed away from him. I was really
frightened of him. We had heard about Jimmy Knepper…I would have
lasted a night and a half. But I did go to a piano concert of his,
on a terrible upright piano, at Columbia University. And he pointed
at me and said, “There’s a young man here I’d like to invite to
play.” And through that appearance I met three or four friends in
life. He never remembered my name, he’d just heard me play at
Lennox. But I met Rod Hodges, Bruce Hobson, people that I knew
years later. That was at Columbia University in 61 or 62. He would
play at the Jazz Gallery, but there was a little place near the
Village Gate, maybe the Playhouse. That’s not the right name. It
was a very tiny club.

B; You worked as a waiter at the Jazz Gallery in the
early ‘60s?

R: Yes, and one of my favorite clients to wait on was Nica de
Koenigswarter Rothschild and her daughter. I remember being there
and Jackie Monk – who was related to Nellie’s part of the family –
and they went to Brother Alex Bradford’s gospel church in
Newark.

R: Yes, in front of Sidney Poitier and James
Baldwin. I remember roaring and going down. And I remember Joe
Torriny looking at Marvin Patashnik and saying “His days are
numbered“ or something. Then I begged and begged to go back. So I
got demoted to kitchen duty and I learned to make fried rice for
Thelonius. And I got reinstated to be the waiter for Nica when
she’d come with her Bentley at 12. I loved being there – listening
to Gil Evans, Brubeck…It was very good waiting during some people –
Slide Hampton, Horace, the whole gang, Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach.
To hear Freedom Now Suite and the eight great songs from
Randy Weston’s African Lady. And the a great 5/4 piece by
Julian Priester. That’s where I got to know Mal Waldron and asked
if I could study. St. Marks Place near 2nd & 3rd. Good egg
creams. Strange nights going back across town. Then taking the IRT
subway back and my 89 year old landlady saying “Cut out the
noise.”